In the Little Things
by KamikazeCreamPuff
Summary: A collection of Alice drabbles, inspired by the little things.
1. Hair reprise

_Hair (Reprise) – Revival Broadway Soundtrack_

Alice loved Hatter's hair.

The first thing she did when he arrived in her world, his hair inexplicably made tidy, was to bury her fingers in it and encourage every cowlick she could find to spring back to its normal chaos. Curls fell into place at the smallest brush of her fingers like they were eager for her touch, flying every which way until they suited her. "Better," she said, smiling happily and kissing his nose.

Hatter grinned. "Missed it, eh? And here I thought maybe I'd try to make a good impression."

Alice shrugged. "It suits you. And by the way, where the _hell_ is your hat?"


	2. Fall Down

_Fall Down – Superchic[k]_

_**  
_

Alice was a good student, when she was in school. She went to every single class, including physics.

She learned about throwing balls up in the air, and every conceivable way of measuring the speed of that ball at different points of its trajectory. She paid very close attention and received high marks.

She remembered thinking one day, oddly, how scared that ball must feel soaring up into the air, feeling like it would never stop… and then stopping. Hovering in the air, for one split second, at 50 meters or 100 meters or 38.6 meters or whatever the problem required, but then hurtling down back towards the Earth at 9.8 meters per second with no way of stopping.

Everything had to fall. Always. Gravity was something constant, something that never changed. It was the same in New York, in San Fransisco, in London and Australia and spit-nowhere, New Zealand. No matter where you went in this universe, you fell. Her teacher told her this like it was some sort of outstanding miracle. Alice thought it was horrifying.

Alice did not like to fly, because flying meant falling.


	3. A Joyful Noise

_A Joyful Noise – Bat Boy Original Broadway Cast_

_**  
_

Carol never felt so good as she did when she got that phone call.

One moment, Alice was rushing out the door, and once Carol had the mental wits to run after her, she had vanished. In this kind of city, at this kind of hour, that could mean many things… and none of them were good.

What could she do? She called everyone she knew. Had any one seen her? Anyone been around the area? She called, and she waited.

Her phone eventually rang, and a random construction worker was speaking, but it was still the most beautiful thing Carol had ever heard before in her life.


	4. Dental Care

_Dental Care – Owl City_

_**  
_

There were a lot of new things that Oysters had to worry about, on this side of the Glass.

"Where are we going, again?"

"We're going to get our teeth cleaned," Alice said simply, holding him firmly by the elbow as she opened a door to a white office with purple carpet and bad music.

"But I did that just this morning," Hatter said, confused. "Why are we _here_?"

"Oyster teeth need to be professionally cleaned every year or so," Alice told him. Hatter raised his eyebrow.

"So Oysters should make better toothbrushes," he offered. "That's what you're telling me?"

Alice pushed him.

"What? It just makes sense! Why do you need to pay someone to clean your teeth for you _and _brush your teeth every night? It's not efficient, that's all I'm saying!"

"Oh, just shut up. It won't be that bad, I promise."

It was.


	5. Zack's Rap

_Zack's Rap – Commentary! The Musical_

_**  
_

Hatter doesn't sing.

The first time he heard music in her world, he was appalled. "What is this?" he asked.

"Rap music," Alice said. "I'd tell you who the artist was, but to be honest, they all sound the same to me."

"These lyrics are gross." He pulled a face. "Who is supposed to be listening to this?"

After much trial-and-error, Alice found that Hatter rather liked music from the 80s, rock hits, techno, anything he could bob his head to. He still never sang, but sometimes, if Alice was lucky, she could catch him using the soup ladle to give a soundless, but perfectly lip-synched rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'" playing on her iPod.

(She has a feeling he does it just to make her laugh, but if that's his plan, it works nevertheless.)


	6. Curiouser and Curiouser

_Curiouser and Curiouser_

_**_

Once, as Alice stepped out of the shower and started to get dressed for the day, Hatter finally asked a question that had bothered him ever since Wonderland.

"Alice," he began, "How come when your hair is wet, it's all curly, but after it air-dries it's all straight and smooth again?"

She turned back and looked at him for a moment, thoughtfully. Then she said, "Genetics," and turned back to her dresser.

"Genetics," he repeated.

"Mmm hmm."

And that was the end of that.


	7. Kettle

_Pot, Meet Kettle. (You're Black.)_

_**  
_

Alice had never been one for nicknames. She didn't really _mind_ them, she just didn't see the _point_ of them -- it was not as though her name was particularly cumbersome or in need of shortening. Still, somehow over the first ten months of their relationship, Hatter had begun calling her "Kettle" upon occasion.

Usually he called her Alice, of course. But every now and then, when he particularly wanted her to listen to him, the little nickname would slip out of his mouth with his accent skipping on the t's in a way that never failed to turn her head. It was an innocent thing, casual, not dripping with romance or anything else similarly ridiculous, but it was… odd.

It was a long time before she bothered to ask him why. "Why "Kettle"?" she asked. "Of all the things to call me, why that one?"

He looked at her, scratching his ear with an errant flick of his hand. "Because kettles are good. Trusty, dependable, useful things – you pick a good kettle, it sticks with you for the rest of your life. And also because you, Alice," he snorted, shaking his head with a small half-smile, "are truly an _entirely_ different kettle of onions."

Alice wasn't sure, but she thought that she might have just been complimented.

**

**A/N: **Read this little drabble's title again, now that you've finished it, and maybe you'll see the inside joke. ^_^


	8. Take It Like A Man

_Take It Like A Man – Legally Blonde the Musical_

_**  
_

"No, you can't buy that one."

"Why not? It's perfectly nice."

"Of all the things that shirt is, "perfectly nice" is not one of them. As someone who has to look at you every day, I cannot let you buy that."

"You could always just look at me… without the shirt."

"…You're trying to distract me, and it's not going to work."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Hmm."

"Now, here, this one. Nice color, nice cut, you'll stand out in a crowd but you won't look like an idiot. This is nice, right?"

"…Yeah, actually. That is pretty nice."

"See, I told you. I know what I'm doing."

Alice heaved a long-suffering sigh and followed Hatter to the register. "Are you _sure_ you're not gay? Because really, you could fool me."

He grinned lasciviously and leaned close. "You need me to prove it?"

And so he did.


	9. Yeah Toast!

_Yeah Toast! – The Bob and Tom Show_

_**  
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There was a strange quirk to Hatter's physiology, Alice discovered. It was either a Wonderland thing or just a _Hatter_ thing (and she strongly suspected the latter), but somehow he was able to survive on literally nothing but buttered toast and tea.

Sure, he _liked_ other food—pizza, for instance, once they had gotten around to actually eating it—but, as he divulged to her one evening over dinner, left with nothing else he could live his whole life on simply buttered toast and tea.

"It's my favorite food," he said simply. "It's in my blood. Gets boring after awhile, though, eating it day after day." He shrugged, taking a large bite of the chicken on his plate, completely unfazed by Alice's dubious expression and slight shaking-of-the-head.

Sure enough, the longer they lived together the more Alice became used to the crumbs that always spread in a two-foot radius around the toaster. She began to throw butter and an extra loaf of bread automatically into her basket upon every visit to the grocery store, without even thinking. She kept the cupboards stocked with jam and honey, too, just in case.

And, for the rest of their lives, whenever he was feeling particularly frustrated or moody, she always knew the first and best way to cheer him up.


	10. Playing Pretend

_Playing Pretend  
_

**

The irony of being the Queen of Hearts, the Duchess realized, was that you ended up locking your heart away.

Jack had proposed to her the same day the Oysters had been sent home. He took the ring out of the Looking Glass, brought it to her, and asked her to be his queen. And even though his voice rang hollow, and his speech seemed far too practiced, and he wouldn't meet her eyes exactly, the Duchess said yes. She slipped the ring on her finger, everyone had cheered, and they had kissed, and it was more like a theatrical performance than anything else.

And if the Duchess had been expecting his kiss to hold a little bit more warmth than usual, she was mistaken. Kissing Jack now had been just like kissing him always. She supposed she should be grateful for that, considering all that had happened between them, all the mistakes that had been made, all the mistrust and the subversion. Instead, it was like nothing had changed, except that everything had.

So she sat on the throne, and got rid of the Queen's horrid old playing-card caftan in favor of a stylish new jacket with gold and fur and deep red lining, and she lived her life the way she always had. Nothing was wrong. She loved Jack. Oddly enough, she really did. She loved him.

And she loved being the Queen of Hearts. She was good at it. The Duchess was an expert at locking her heart away.

She had, after all, been playing pretend her whole life… she didn't see any reason to stop now.


	11. A Cool Fire

_A Cool Fire_

**

He definitely couldn't blame Jack for fighting for her. Alice was something nobody in Wonderland had seen in a long time – a glimmer of change. She was radiant with the energy of possibility, she was a wildfire wearing an ice blue dress. Yeah, he blamed Jack for hurting her... for treating her like any pawn and breaking her heart... but he couldn't blame him for wanting her back.

He couldn't blame Alice either, for trying to be loyal, for wanting everything to work out through sheer force of will. Beating the world around her into submission. It was stunning. It was mad. But it was just the way Alice worked.

Hatter was unfamiliar with that particular brand of stupidity – loyalty – and he admired it, was fascinated by it, loved her for it as much as he was frustrated by it.

No, he couldn't blame either of them. So the only person Hatter had left to blame was himself.

He dropped the stick, and he let the two of them walk away.

**


	12. Decisions, Decisions

_Decisions, decisions_

**

Hatter and Alice fought, and they fought often. To be honest, they both rather liked it, and there was no place they fought more at than the grocery store.

Once they almost had a shouting match over whether to buy creamy or chunky peanut butter. Hatter insisted that chunky peanut butter ripped the bread when it was being spread on, while Alice told him on no uncertain terms that creamy peanut butter ruined the texture of an honest PB&J.

(They ended up buying small containers of each kind, although in reality they were both entirely careless about which one they grabbed when they needed it.)

The point wasn't just to get what they wanted, of course – when you got right down to it, peanut butter was just peanut butter. The point was to be _right_.

Hatter knew this. So one day, when he didn't feel like fighting -- he just wanted to walk into the grocery store, do what needed doing, and leave -- he knew how to head off the potential argument he saw coming.

"You're right," he said simply, gesturing carelessly towards the display in front of them. "The apples don't look all that good. Get the bananas instead."

Alice's mouth gaped momentarily, a barbed comment she had been preparing obviously dying on her tongue. Hatter smirked to himself, just the tiniest bit, as he saw the disappointed fall of her features, tossing bananas into their cart without even bothering to check for ripeness.

Hatter rolled his eyes silently and looked ahead to the dairy aisle. "I want cheddar cheese," he said loudly, knowing full well that Alice preferred provolone and deciding all at once that he never liked doing things peacefully anyways.

**


	13. Lint: A Little Alliteration

**A/N**: I apologize for this chapter in advance. It's midsems week right now, and I was a little... loopy... when I wrote this. ^_^

**

Long ago, on a lusciously lazy Sunday, a laughably loony calamity occurred.

"Leaping larkers," Hatter exclaimed, lifting the load of laundry aloft. "Alice, look! Your lovely lace leggings were lumped in the laundry with my lambskin long johns, and now they are not only lumpy, but also lost in lint!"

"Really?" Alice called from the living room. "My lacy leggings with the Llama logos, or the lacy leggings with the lollipop logos?"

"…These logos _might_ look like llamas? _Linty_ llamas, at least. I mean it, they are currently lost under layers of lint."

"You little liar!" Alice launched herself at the lacy leggings and held them triumphantly. "I'd believed I'd lost those long ago!"

"Obviously your belief was faulty, lovely," Hatter said. "Although lost to the laundry, perhaps. Look, the lint loves the lacy textile, the llama logos especially."

"I was listening the first several times, love. Believe it or not, I love linty llamas on the same level as lint-less llamas, especially when they are logos on my beloved lacy leggings."

"You little loser," Hatter teased. "Loving these ludicrous leggings."

Alice smiled. "Loser, eh?" she leered, leaping into a tackle that evolved into a struggle, culminating in a loud wrestling match that landed them both in a legitimate leg lock.

"You're the loser," Alice rolled her eyes. Naturally, being always ladylike to the letter, she violently lashed out until eventually liberating her little, yet lithe leg from below Hatter's large one. As she laughed, lifting herself off the floor, Hatter looked up, enthralled, at the way she licked her lips and lifted her long locks off her face, lit up in the lingering light.

"I love you," he said, leaning up and smiling.

"I love you too," Alice replied, and the lustful pair locked lips on simply another lively day.

**


	14. Cocoa

_Cocoa_

_**  
_

Hatter had never led a 'normal' life, not even by Wonderland standards. He considered himself to be a man of action, a man who lived dangerously. So when Alice said one cold, November evening, "Let's try something new," his ears perked up in interest.

"Oh really?" he asked, intrigued.

"I'm going to break you out of your rut," Alice said, gesturing to all the tea things on the table and getting up off the couch. "Do they have cocoa in Wonderland? Hot chocolate?"

Hatter put on his most affronted expression. "Excuse me," he said defensively, getting up to follow her. "_Tea_ is not a _rut_."

Alice hummed in a distracted sort of way, searching for two clean mugs. "So you've never had it, then?"

"I don't _need_ cocoa, I have _tea_." Hatter said, his voice clearly indicating some frustration that Alice didn't understand this concept. "Why would you have a need for one over the other?"

"What if… you run out of tea?" Alice asked, eyebrows raised in challenge. Hatter snickered and patted her on the head (something he _knew_ she hated), turning around and heading back to the couch. Hatter considered himself an adventurous man, but _this_ conversation was just _ridiculous_.

**


	15. Who Said We're Whack?

_Who Said We're Whack? – The Lonely Island_

**

"Man," the guy down the bar said sloppily to his pal. "Look at that fruit in the purple." They snorted into their vodka sours. "And that _hat_… oh, hell, that hat is _whack_…"

Hatter looked at them sidelong, and flipped his hat up into the air. He walked over, punched the first guy in the back of the head so that it ricocheted forward to crack against the second guys' nose. They both collapsed face-first onto the bar, moaning. Hatter shook out his fist and sauntered back over to his bar stool just in time for his black, pinstriped fedora to fall neatly back in its place. He adjusted it with a subtle nudge and looked around at the other patrons.

"How can a person call another person whack?" he asked.

He knocked back his drink in the following silence.

**


	16. Lost and Found

_Lost and Found_

__Everything smelled like smoke. It was in the dirt between his toes, the leaves of the trees he slept upon, even the stream's water tasted ashy in his mouth. The Queen had fought fire with fire… even from his hiding spot under a tree's expansive roots, he had felt the heat of his home going up in flames.

He walked among the scarred, soot-smeared stones that marked where grand buildings had once stood. He walked down the street that had once been lined with houses, now completely flattened and echoing with old screams that refused to leave his ears.

This had been his street. He stopped in front of a mass of blackened sticks.

This had been his house.

The young squire (Was he still a squire? Did they old ways still apply when the people who had counted them important were now gone?) stepped carefully to the place where his room had been. His foot accidentally brushed too close to a piece of wood sticking out of a pile, and the slight touch set the whole pile to crumbling, covering his feet. The ashes were still warm, a lingering heat that was almost enough to warm up his cold, numb skin.

Perhaps that had been his bed. It was impossible to recognize it now.

A small bundle of burlap had been unearthed by the collapse. The boy paused, and then leaned over to pick it up, brushing off the debris that clung to its rough texture. All of this ash was making his eyes water… that's what he would have told anyone, if they'd been there.

He hugged the bear, _his_ bear, _his_ Percival to his cheek, the two of them trying to forget how desperate and lost and powerless they both felt.

It was many, many years before the bear stopped smelling of smoke.


	17. Body Heat

**A/N:** This is one of those plot bunnies I had while drunk, and then remembered in the morning and decided that yes, it was still a good idea. XD I just love puns.

_

* * *

._.

_Body Heat_

Alice didn't let herself think about it very often – it was already difficult for her to believe that she'd ended up with a guy like Hatter against all odds and logic – but every now and again, in the privacy of her mind, she would bask a little bit in the warm knowledge that Hatter was _really_ hot.

(Yes, she may have been a bit emotionally scarred, but hey, she was still a _woman._ With _eyes._)

As it turned out, he wasn't just hot in the figurative sense, either. He didn't just have a really hot body, he had a _really hot body._ Within the first few weeks of their living together Alice had kicked so many bedsheets into tumbled piles on the floor, roasting in the heat night after night, that one day she just gave up and put them all in the closet except for one that she kept just out of principle.

During the winter, it was lovely. He wrapped his arms around her and it was like she had her own personal heating unit to nuzzle against.

During the summer, she wanted to _kill_ him.

For those months, usually an electric fan blowing right onto where she slept would do the job. However, this week was particularly humid – the worst San Fransisco had endured in fifty years, if the weathermen were to be believed – and as she told Hatter, the only way she was going to get any sleep at _all_ was if she went to the couch.

"I guess I'm too hot for you to handle, huh?" he asked with a cheeky grin. She glared and threw an extra throw pillow across the room, hitting him directly in his smug little face.

But it was true. Hatter's body was, literally, _too hot_ for Alice to handle.

* * *

..


End file.
